


All Other Men May Use Deceit

by thekillerdynamo



Category: Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
Genre: All Rosa wants is for her dumbass friends not to kill themselves, At least Rydia is sensible, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Coming of Age, Eventual Romance, Except you Barbariccia, Fleshing out the FFIV world, Friendship of all types, If she were taken anywhere else besides the Tower of Zot it would have been a vacation, More friendship than your grandma can handle, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Multi, Outdated attitudes on child-rearing, Overprotective family and friends, Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Rosa loves (almost) everyone, Slice of Life, Societal expectations, White wizards: it's a messy job but someone has to do it, tw: death of a child, unrequited romantic love (goddammit Kain)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:15:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24692146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekillerdynamo/pseuds/thekillerdynamo
Summary: When Rosa loves someone, she loves them deeply, no half-measures. And if that brings her a bit more pain than she expected, she'll do her best to bear the blows.A series of interrelated episodes chronicling Rosa's life before, during, and after the games. While the Cecil/Rosa sweetness is a given, this story will also focus on other relationships and themes.Chapter 3 now up: Rosa meets Cecil. She thinks he's neat. Kain's nascent psychological issues send their regards.
Relationships: Kain Highwind/Rosa Joanna Farrell (one-sided), Rosa Joanna Farrell & All her friends, Rosa Joanna Farrell & Cecil Harvey & Kain Highwind, Rosa Joanna Farrell & Edward Chris von Muir, Rosa Joanna Farrell & Joanna Farrell, Rosa Joanna Farrell & Kain Highwind, Rosa Joanna Farrell & Rydia, Rosa Joanna Farrell/Cecil Harvey
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	1. Awakened Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I am using the DS/IOS version of the game as my basic point of reference. I try to follow the canon timeline as much as I can, but where the timing of events is ambiguous (such as exactly how old Kain was when Richard died) I use my own intuition. The world of FFIV really only gets more ridiculous the more you try to make sense of it, so I’m not going to be too fussed over minor divergences. Like most Final Fantasies the game’s setting is a weird mishmash of anachronisms that defy categorization, but I envision Baron and its society as being generally analogous to 14th and 15th-century western Europe (except with flying machines).
> 
> This first chapter starts out heavily and involves the death of a child, but the tone will not remain this bleak. Friendship is a major theme of the story and there will be good times to offset the bad. In my opinion this story could probably rate as Teen, but I am marking it M to be on the safe side. 
> 
> I’m mainly writing this just to flesh out characters and a story that I have great fondness for. I chose to focus on Rosa because I think she has an integrity that is underrated, plus I wanted to extend her role outside that of love interest. I enjoy her relationship with Cecil, but she’s more than just his arm candy. Her thoughts, as expressed in the DS version, show her to be concerned about the state of the entire world and her other friends. She’s tougher than people give her credit for and I think that the After Years wasn’t very kind to her. I wanted to give her some love.

The first heartbreak came during Rosa’s fifth year. Before that, but not before Kain—there was no time before Kain—Rosa had been great friends with another girl her age named Elissa. Then one day a wagon-cart ran Elissa down in the street, a wheel stalled against her head, one burst eye half-dangling from its crushed socket and gobbets dripping from her nose onto the cobblestones. Before, the act of dying had only been an abstraction, something she only heard her mother murmur about behind the walls of her examining room; she had barely understood that the meat served at dinner had once breathed she same air she did. To see the theory burst into merciless reality—well, her mother always said that the world taught its greatest lessons when its students were most unprepared.

They had been out with their mothers on errands, Elissa and she, and later to meet with Lady Highwind for tea. While their mothers conducted business in various shops, they darted from one attraction to the other: the tray of a woman selling candy, gauzy dresses in a shop window, the smell of bread from the baker’s, a travelling minstrel with her dancing dog. Much better than being cooped up day.

It hadn’t been Elissa’s fault.

If she had not screamed—

Across the way, Rosa had seen the town smith bring a panoply of strange armor out beside his shop for pick-up, an armor so pitch-black that it had no sheen; it sucked the sun’s rays into oblivion. She sized up the traffic, saw an opening, and broke away. Her mother barked her name and Rosa had known she’d be in for it once she came back, but she was too enthralled by the inky mass to fear the consequences. Even as a toddler her eyesight had been uncommonly keen—"My daughter can pick out a flea on a pine-needle from fifty yards,” her father liked to boast—and she had spied the intricate filigree-like designs soldered onto the suit’s plate.

“Come look at this!” she had called out. “It’s not like Papa’s armor! Look how black it is!” Even as the smith and her mother shouted at her to stop, in her childish curiosity Rosa had tapped one of the rondels. The skin of her finger seared against the metal as if she had put it against a metal pole in winter. The icy burning made her shriek; she could not pull away.

“Here, I’ll help you!” Elissa had already started across. Everyone had been so focused on the immediate crisis that they did not heed the shouts from behind until the runaway wagon-cart came exploding through. Another poor woman and Elissa halted its mad course with their bodies. The collision had mangled the woman’s legs but she yet lived, howling in pain, while Elissa’s corpse twitched in the dust.

Squealing metal and cracking wood gave way to screaming. Screams from all sides: low screams of horror, shrill screams of pain; loudest of all rose the scream of Elissa’s mother. That scream Rosa could always recall perfectly, even to end of her own life. She would hear screams just as horrible in the future, but none would ever be worse. It rang in her ears ceaselessly, blocking out all other noise.

Somehow Rosa had settled into a crouch against the smith-shop wall, unable to do anything except gape as Elissa’s mother tried in vain to wrest the body from underneath the wheel. Rosa’s own mother had knelt next to the wounded woman, hands working in mechanical efficiency. One of the screams coalesced into something like: “Save her!” She could barely understand her mother’s response, but it was in a cool, level voice that Rosa had never heard before. It had been as if Joanna Farrell herself had sunk away and someone else entirely new now occupied her body.

“That poor child is gone. I cannot do anything for her now. I must focus on those I can save.”

Elissa’s mother had stopped screaming; for an instant she moved as if she would attack Joanna with her clawed fingers, but just as suddenly her bulging eyes flickered and rolled up to the whites. She fell into a dead faint and was carried away by two people in the crowd that had formed all around the disaster. Peoples’ legs at last obscured the line of sight into the street, but Rosa could still see Elissa’s broken face no matter how hard she closed her eyes.

Rosa brought her fingers up to her mouth only to suck on bitter iron: a large chunk had been scooped out of her right index finger, blood oozing thickly from the wound. A dull, icy pain flared through her hand. Before she could finally scream, her mother’s voice called once more.

“Take Rosa away, Aoife. I’ll send word when I can.”

The street disappeared behind a curtain of voluminous curls and the column of a fashionably pale, slender neck as she was lifted up into Lady Highwind’s arms. She remembered nothing of the whirlwind trip to the Highwind townhome except that she must have gotten sick on herself along the way because, once they arrived at the threshold only less slightly well-known than her own, Lady Highwind immediately stripped her and scrubbed her all over with warm water. Bundled in a too-large sleeping shift (Kain’s spare) and her finger bandaged and plastered, she was ushered into a small room dominated by a bed with no canopy. Kain had recently boasted of having a bed to himself; all of the other children in their playgroup envied him his freedom and luxury.

At that moment Rosa had ached for the bed in her own home, which she still shared with her parents. She longed to be there, surrounded by the warmth of her father and mother, even though her father was still far away on campaign with the Dragoon knights, serving under Lord Richard.

“Rest here, my lamb. I do not know how long you will be here, but I’m sure your mother will fetch you as soon as she’s done. She has many things she must attend to.”

“But Elissa—”

“Ah, sweet baby, the priestesses of Asura will take good care to send her on her way to meet the Good Goddess. Once they’ve made her ready you can say goodbye.”

“No, I want Elissa!”

She had cried herself into a feverish doze. When she awoke, Lady Highwind was gone and the room completely dark save for a pale patch of flickering light slipping underneath the door. She called out for her mother, knowing she would not come but taking poor solace in the effort anyway. The door creaked open in a flash of false hope: Kain’s face, framed by hair that had never been once cut in his life, peered at her with odd hesitance over his candle. He was always loud and pushy when they met to play; trying to keep quiet was something in which he had had no practice.

“Hello,” Kain whispered. “Mama told me not to bother you until you woke up by yourself. She’s in the central hall now. She’s been waiting there a long time. Do you want me to bring her?”

“No.” She fell back into the covers. Her body prickled all over with exhaustion but she did not want to sleep. The candle cast crazy shadows on Kain’s face; his left eye bulged and drooped from his socket and the shadow over his lips began to run with blood. It made her shriek. Kain climbed onto the bed and grabbed her trembling hands away from her face. Two whole eyes in an unbloodied face stared at her, reflecting her own terror. She did not know what was going on or why she was still here. The shaking in her body gave way to the stillness of a small animal frozen in its hiding spot, not daring to make the slightest movement that would betray its presence to its pursuer. Kain fished around hopelessly for a minute before landing on a chest at the foot of the bed.

“Look at this! Look at the dragon Cid made for me.” She remembered Cid, his scary teeth and googles. Her father said he was a friend, but he looked more like a bandit or pirate to her. Normally the memory of that bizarre face would make her cringe but now she welcomed it; it kept Elissa at bay.

Still grasping one of her hands, Kain reached across to pull out a cunningly devised toy dragon. It had working joints and wings that could be unfurled or closed up; tiny rollers concealed in its feet brushed against the bedding and somehow made little crackles of light spew from its mouth. Every handmade copper scale glittered like a jewel. Rosa should have been delighted, but delight would not come. But it was lovely and distracting and took away some of the terror. She fiddled with the wings and Kain did not even scold her when it looked like she was about to snap one in two. Encouraged further, Kain began to rattle off everything he knew about dragons and wyverns and all sorts of wyrms. He had become obsessed with them over the past year. It was all he talked about. Most facts he had told her already, but Rosa latched on to every word.

When he had exhausted his knowledge, Kain peered at her again over a wide yawn. What he saw made him look uneasy. “Do you want to try to sleep now? It’s late. Mama says I can sleep in her bed—"

“No!” she had crunched his fingers in hers. Rosa knew she would not sleep that night. Terrible clarity awakened her heart to the truth: out there, in the temple of Asura, the priests were preparing Elissa for burial. With sacred oil they would be anointing the broken head, hands that used to take delight in soft things, feet that had once rushed to hours of breathless play and now would never run again. Everything that Elissa had ever been was now offered up to the Three-Faced Goddess.

“Please don’t leave. Let’s go on! Where’s your other toys? Let’s get them all out. I won’t sleep until Mama comes to get me.”

“I’m tired,” he snapped. “You stay up if you want. I’m going to the other bed.”

She fell into another crying fit, certain that he was going to leave her alone to wait out the night while blood and wheels flashed through the darkness, not knowing that in the next moment Kain would prove himself for all eternity in her eyes. It did not matter that pity and annoyance played for supremacy on his face—his left hand still grasped hers while the right awkwardly patted her shoulder

“There, it’s okay! I’m right here. I’ll stay with you, but I’m still going to sleep. Maybe if you try, you can fall asleep too.” They both recognized the vain hope in that wish, but it was a small comfort to entertain the possibility.

He ordered her to scoot over and began to arrange things to his satisfaction before blowing out the candle. They placed their heads on opposite ends of the single long pillow.

“Kain,” she had whispered, “we can still play later, right? When I’m feeling better. If it’s with you, anything will be fun. None of the other children’re as fun as you.”

“Father said in his last letter that I’ve reached the age of reason and that I have to go to lessons with the other boys once he returns.” She wilted; her desperate plans dashed. “But I’ll talk to Mama. She’ll tell Father that we need time to play. He’ll listen to her. We’ll play as long as we can, and I’ll help you not to feel so sad.” He thumped his hand against his chest. “I swear this on Dragoon’s honor.”

It was his mightiest oath, the one he never broke, and it had been satisfaction enough.

The terrible visions returned, vivid as they were in the daylight, but she no longer had the strength to cry—and Kain was there. It was all the same in the darkness, so she kept her eyes open, painfully cognizant of every itch and creak. Her limbs became lead-heavy and seized up so that she could not move or take deep breaths; she didn’t even start when Lady Highwind quietly eased open the door. Hope briefly flared up but died quickly when Lady Highwind made no effort to rouse her. Lulled by the lack of movement, Kain gave out soft whistles through his slack mouth. Rosa laid there all the rest of the night, dreading the coming day and the funeral. She had only been to one funeral before, for a grandparent, and she hardly remembered anything about it. What would it be like? She did not know, except that it would be dreadful.

She remembered her injured finger and realized it hardly ached. In the morning she would find that no blood had soaked through; in a week the tip would be completely whole, filled in with a bumpy scar tissue that could be pierced all the way through with a pin and feel nothing until it hit where the old flesh had been torn away.

Her mother finally came just before first light, ignoring all questions and taking Rosa straight home to a sleeping draught and their own bed. Rosa did not learn until years later that her mother had come to the temple as soon as she had finished with the injured woman and had spent the whole night helping prepare Elissa’s body before the priestesses took it away for immediate burning.

While Rosa had slept, Elissa’s parents uprooted their whole household and rode away from the city never to return, cursing the useless healer who could not bring their daughter back from the grasp of the Good Goddess.


	2. Doctors and Dragons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosa and Kain play their days away while Rosa's mother frets about the future. Luckily, happy news is on the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently there used to be a kingdom named Palamecia in the FFIV world. And apparently it had an Emperor. And apparently a Highwind was instrumental in fighting against it. What a coincidence! (It actually isn't THE Palamecia from FFII, but if the original series can be cute about it then so can I. Also, it isn't an issue in the actual game-story because, as we will see, Baron does NOT screw around when it comes to obliterating enemy kingdoms).
> 
> I try to reread and clean up my chapters before posting, but they are still unbetaed. I apologize for any mistakes and will try to correct them as I catch them.

She swirled into the room in a billow of robes, swinging open the door with a mighty twist of the wrist to achieve the effect of maximum authority, just like her mother did whenever some hapless soldier sat hunched on the table in the downstairs examination room. In her free hand she clutched a few crumpled sheets of waste parchment paper and a quill.

“Now, Master Highwind—”

“Lord Highwind.”

“Fine, _Lord_ Highwind, what seems to be your problem today?” She brushed the drooping hood out of her eyes and hovered the inkless quill over the parchment.

“My nose hurts, Lady Mage,” he said, stone-faced save for his mocking eyes. Rosa bent over to hide her scowl while she made the motions of making notes, scratching a few letters that turned into scribbly lines. She had already gone through the trouble to wrap up his head, left arm, and right foot in bandages to prepare him and here he was saying his nose hurt! He was doing it on purpose! But she’d match him and make him play it her way.

“Your nose, you say?”

“Yes, it’s been itching for days. When I sneeze, it comes out purple.” He snickered, thinking he was so clever! Producing one of her mother’s illumination wands, she marched up to him; with a murmured word to activate the spell, she shone the light straight into his eyes and up his nostrils.

“Hmmm, I don’t see anything up there. Maybe that’s your problem. See, if I shine it through your ear it comes out the other side. You have a bad case of no…no-brain-itis.”

“I do not!”

She yanked on one of his bandages. “Who’s the doctor here? Me! I didn’t go to wizarding classes to have a dummy like you tell me what’s wrong. Now, having no brain is bad, but if make a hole right…here…” she tugged at a cowlick near the top of his skull, “I think we can pour in some new brains and make you good as new.”

“That’s not how it works! You’re a terrible doctor, I could do better than you. Let me be the doctor!” He grabbed at her sleeve and hood and she struggled against the outrage. Her accessories clattered to the floor as they tussled in earnest. In desperation she snapped her teeth a mere hair away from his nose.

“Are you trying to _bite_ me? That’s cheating! You’re a cheater and a quack,” Kain yelled, half in fury and half in glee, giving her a push that sent her hard onto her haunches. It always ended like this. He was older and stronger, and any attempt she made at challenging him resulted in her being the loser, but Rosa did not mind. It was the tussle that was the real sport. She tried to counterattack but he had regained his grip on her sleeve. As she pulled away there was a loud pop, the seams at her shoulder coming undone. Her alarmed cry at last made him fall back. Rosa cast a glance at the door, judging to see if she had any time at all to try and rectify the situation—no hope for it. The footsteps were coming fast. Open flew the door.

“Now what is all—oh, Rosa! My spare robe,” her mother lamented. They plucked themselves off the floor, shuffling shamefacedly under her gaze. “Well, it can’t be helped now; at least you can help me sew the sleeve back on. What’s this—my illumination pen, too? And Kain, put your tunic back on, please. Rosa, you must treat your guests better—making Kain your doll! Surely there are more proper games to play.” During this lecture her mother had begun to set the room to rights, Rosa and Kain helping as best they could. It was that same cool, clipped tone that Rosa had once thought so strange but now heard almost every day; she supposed it was better than being yelled at—though she could not really recall her parents ever shouting at her—but she was growing to dislike it.

All apprehensions fled upon their being ushered into the table for snacks. Rosa had to hand it to Kain: he not only lightened her own heart but her mother’s as well, and Joanna absolutely doted on him. No matter how many days in a row he arrived at their door, she always greeted him with a kiss on his golden crown; she was far more liberal with the pastries; her smile came more naturally and she even would laugh at his bluster and flights of fancy. Rosa could rarely make her mother laugh.

“Your mother is so nice,” Kain mumbled through his cake. “Mama—I mean, my lady mother—says she’s a great lady. And it’s not just her. Everyone else I know says it, too.”

“She is. She once was the toast of the army, and all the knights cried when she married Papa,” Rosa boasted, not knowing exactly what being the toast of an army really entailed except that it was a compliment.

Rosa didn’t know how to explain to Kain how sometimes she caught her mother casting a glance out the window seemingly at nothing, her eyes hardening into pinpricks of ice, her mouthing thinning as if she wanted to spit on the world. Rosa did not know why, when she silently sneaked down through the shadows of the central hall late at night when she was supposed to be in bed, her mother poured over files of papers and fussed over piles of coins and gems, subtracting from one pile to add to another. It wasn’t as if anything had changed; they lived in comfort but her mother always ran a frugal household. Except for a nanny when she had been a baby, the Farrell townhome had no permanent staff to speak of--there were the apprentices that her mother was helping to train up, but they had room and board elsewhere. Yet whenever there was something to be done, it would get done. For everyone in the town knew that when it came to treating the sick Lady Joanna Farrell was your woman. Although a noblewoman, almost every day Joanna would make her rounds through the streets, answering to any summons and requiring no payment for her services; but very rarely did she get nothing in return. If a part of their roof needed to be retiled, a workman whose wife Joanna had treated for fever would patch it up overnight; she had treated the family members of so many of the street children that all Joanna had to do was whistle and one would come running up to do any favor; offerings of vegetables, eggs and meat were left on the doorstep. All this combined with Sir Farrell’s income as a Captain in the Baron Marines made for a very comfortable existence. So why did her mother sometimes throw out those terrible looks?

“Your mother is just a worrywart, that’s all,” Lady Highwind would say, her mouth rueful. “She’s been like that since we were little girls at our lessons. We could have all the sweets we wanted to eat and all sorts of toys to play with, but she’d always be watching out in case a we’d suddenly get rained on or if a beast would come and crash our picnic. She’s never at ease. She can’t enjoy things for fear of losing them.”

Whenever Rosa asked why, Lady Highwind only shook her head gently and threw out the old saw: “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

Rosa sighed over her empty plate and idly tapped on the table. Her injured finger had regrown all its flesh and skin in only two days, though the new tissue was white and hard like a scar and it stayed like that for the rest of her life. She had shown it to her mother, hoping it would cheer her up, but upon seeing it Joanna had not smiled. Why did her father, Lady Highwind, or Kain have the power to tease out her mother’s smiles but not she?

I wish, Rosa thought, I could make Mama happy.

***

The fat summer days coursed on and those townsfolk who had the means fled the city for their country manors. In the shaded acres on one of those fine plots a dragon(boy) perched on the knobby roots of an ancient tree and surveyed his dominion. Beneath him lay a banket topped with all sorts of cheap treasures: buttons, scuffed coppers, glass beads. The dragon scooped at the pile with a grunt.

“What’s this? There’s not nearly enough to make me a good hoard. I promised I wouldn’t burn up all your crops and this is the thanks I get?” The battered Dragoon helmet of outmoded design Kain wore was much too big for him and it muffled his voice rather than made it echo, but that made no difference in the height of the game. He acted the part with gusto, drawing his clawed hands over the roots and swaying sinuously from his hunched position.

Before the mighty a dragon a lone priestess made supplication: “Oh, please have mercy! This is all we could get. It was a bad year and famine took all of our gold and—"

“Silence! The Lord of Dragons demands sacrifice! Bring the victim.” He flapped his cape imperiously, raising his arms up like wings. Rosa fetched Princess Maude, an old doll with limbs that could snap in and out of their sockets with ease; she was the only doll that Rosa allowed Kain to handle because she was able to take almost any abuse and come out no worse for wear.

“Now I feast!” Kain pounced on Princess Maude and dipped his dragon’s snout over her, making gnashing and slurping noises. Out popped one leg. Next, an arm. Rosa provided the moans, squeaks, and squeals as poor Maude met her end. Once he had finished his meal Kain mimicked a fiery belch and tossed the rest of Maude back down onto the blanket. He waggled his rump and a toothy smile crept over his face that boded ill. Rosa prepared herself.

“Just one sacrifice isn’t enough for me! I’m still hungry. I think the next victim I’ll eat will be--YOU!”

“Never! I’ll shoot you right out of the sky,” she cried, reaching for her toy bow and a headless practice arrow. He leaped upon her and they went crashing over the grass. She grabbed a handful of his unbound hair (he never liked to put up his hair—it made fights with the other boys and some girls harder, but he still refused) and used her other hand to tickle him wherever she could reach. He gasped out laughter and counterattacked with his own assault on her neck and under her armpits. They shouted and wheezed, neither one ceding the fight.

“Mind yourselves, children,” Lady Highwind’s voice came through the window casement, open to let in the summer breezes. Lady Highwind had long mastered the art of keeping her voice gentle yet filled with the promise of unpleasant consequences if not obeyed, and children and adults both bowed to it.

Still gasping, Rosa and Kain flopped onto the grass to catch their breaths. Rosa picked up her bow and arrow again and directed Kain to balance a piece of fruit from their picnic snack on top of his head; it was a trick she always wanted to try. Kain was reaching for a grape to give her an extra good challenge when her mother’s “ _NO, Rosa,”_ halted her dreams of glory. It was probably just as well. She didn’t think she was good enough yet to hit a grape anyway, and if she missed she’d probably hit Kain in the eye, then he’d go blind and be unable to become a Dragoon and he’d hate her and then she’d have no one to keep the thoughts of wheels and wagons and Elissa’s crushed face away. Only playing with Kain, or the anticipation of playing with him, could distract her, and even so sometimes it was still hard to sleep at night.

Their taste for rough play sated, they went to a small sand-pit near the house, just off the side of the casement. She added some water to the sand and made shapeless mounds that Kain did his best to sculpt into fortresses and castles, adding sticks and bits of bark for effect. As they played quietly their mothers’ voices wafted on the gentle gusts.

“My grave was dug the day my Hal had that bow made,” her mother groused in her usual dry way. “She’s always shooting at her dolls, trying to knock them off the shelf. The worst part is, she’s not half-bad. Maybe she’ll lose interest and she won’t start begging us to take her to the butts.”

“It’s good for a child to have a hobby. She may take up hunting. Many people admire a lady who can ride in the chase. It can be an attractive point.”

“I suppose. Although it may not do her much good now. She shies away whenever she hears even the clop of a horse or a chocobo squawk in the street. I still have to cover her eyes and carry her whenever we leave the house, or else she just shrieks and bawls. It was a terrible day. . .I just hope I can bring her out of it soon. She can hardly stand to go and play with any other children besides your boy. It’s been so hard. And her finger—it healed so quickly I didn’t even need to treat it. I shouldn’t be surprised; the talent is very strong in my family.” Her mother’s voice had never sounded so weary after a whole night’s vigil at a sickbed. Rosa bit her lip and gamely focused on her sand creations.

“She’s a good girl,” said Lady Highwind. “And if she does show the talent, why not send her to the White Order for training?”

“What, so she can spend years squinting over parchments and then get shipped off to some godforsaken rock and share all of the dangers of a soldier with none of the glory? So the soldiers can grab at her and try to flip her robes up when she passes their cots? A lovely life!”

“It didn’t turn out so badly for you,” Lady Highwind said, voice ever mild as the breeze. Rosa took note. Lady Highwind could soothe her mother as only Papa could, just like the maids who could drive cattle with only a rope lead and their gentle touches. If Rosa tried to follow her example perhaps then she could be another source of comfort.

“My lord husband is the rare exception,” riposted her mother. “He was the greatest stroke of luck the gods ever granted me. Remember how I was always so afraid that I’d be sold off to a brute? At least it turned out very well for us both—not that I ever thought you’d choose wrong. I remember when you first started to fancy Richard and he responded in kind, I thought, ‘All those other poor sops had better clear out! He’s going to be the champion.’ But anyway. I know I should not worry myself now; Rosa’s so young. But I’ll not have her be sent off for any war. She seems to like the healing arts; she plays with my instruments all the time and I have to keep them locked up—but if she does go into my business, it will be as a general healer. We need more of them anyway. Let the White Mages offer themselves for the King’s glory—let _them_ set up their tents and be overrun by a pincer charge, let _them_ get their throats cut in the middle of the night by the Palamecians—"

“Jo. It’s all right.” There was a dry coughing sound, the rustling of fabric, and silence. Rosa wanted to edge closer, try to peer over the edge of the window to see inside, but she was too afraid to be seen. Even Kain, who didn’t mind crashing through every door he came upon, showed an overwhelming interest in making the pattern of sticks in his sandcastle just so. Finally, her mother spoke once more.

“Oh, Aoife, I’m sorry. We came out to have a nice time and look at me. Without Hal, I feel like I’m going to pieces. At least I have you!” A small, helpless laugh.

“It’s just your nature to be wound up so. But I think you don’t have to worry about your little lamb. With the Farrell name and such a mother watching out for her, I know she’ll come to good. Why, maybe my Kain could do for her, if things go well. Aren’t they sweet when they’re together!”

“If you can call wrestling in the mud sweet. Ah—Kain is a love, and he has been so gracious to spend so much time with Rosa. They never seem to tire of each other.”

“Wouldn’t it be a lark to see them together? He’d don his full Dragoon mail and go to His Majesty for his approval and witness, and then the wedding bells!”

They actually started to giggle, those two dignified ladies. Rosa broke out of the fog of confusion to gape at Kain, who gaped right back. Here was something that they could understand and had to be dealt with right here and now. What did giggly ladies know? Her mother’s sadness had obviously put her out of her right mind. Rosa patted Kain’s shoulder to signal that he should follow her and they held a conference some distance away, back under the thick-rooted tree.

“I don’t want to be unkind,” Kain leapt in with the first word as usual, straightening himself up with dignity, “but _I’m_ not marrying _you._ You’re just a baby. And I don’t want to ever marry. I’ll be out with my father and training dragons, so I’ll be too busy.”

“And you’re too smelly to be a good husband! And I want to be a doctor. Mama might not let me study white magic, but she’ll give me that. You heard what she said. Or maybe I’ll be a hunter and slay beasties in the forests. Anyway, I’ll be busy, too.”

“Then we’ll both be too busy,” Kain agreed. “And since I’m a gentleman, I’ll let you call me smelly just this once.” He regarded her as she scribbled in the dirt with her scarred finger, deeming her pitiful. “But if—if something bad ever happens, then I’d always let you live with us, on any estate you want. This is a fun place, but I like our manor in the mountains best. One day I’ll take you there.”

That would be nice, Rosa told him with a firmer smile. Her father only truly owned their townhouse; he was a third son and the Farrell lands were held by her uncles’ families. She could not recall ever seeing them—her mother had planted such tough roots in Baron that they hardly travelled. Estates were just a bother, her mother always said: they took time, money, and staff and you had to travel around them all the year and move on to the next one just as you finally got comfortable. A lady needed only one single home of her own—everything else was just frippery. Her father didn’t seem to mind either. Going on a great Baronian campaign provided enough excitement and travel for any man, he said. His brothers had their affairs well in hand, so he could do as he pleased; and what pleased him was to please his wife.

“Besides,” her mother always liked to say as she tweaked Papa’s beard, “no nobleman owns his lands. It’s all given at the King’s mercy, and what is given can be taken away.”

Rosa had heard the words, absorbed them, but with her child’s innocence paid them no mind. The matters of adults were of no concern to her, not when there was play to be done. She picked up Princess Maude’s limbs and started to piece her back together.

Lady Highwind’s voice came once more on the breeze: “Kain, I told you the buttons in my sewing kit were not your playthings! If you’ve used them for one of your games, you best make sure there’s not a spot on them and not a single one is missing!”

They looked at the dragon’s hoard of buttons scattered across the blanket, the grass. They looked at each other and had the same idea.

“Let’s run away forever!” Rosa said, seizing his hand and leading him deeper into the trees.

They held out for two hours, arguing about which direction they were going and whether Troia or Fabul was nicer this time of year. Then they got hungry and went back for dinner. It took Kain until almost evening to find every button.

***

Not long afterwards, a sealed letter was delivered to their door by a man in the King’s livery. Her mother out and about on the rounds, Rosa took the letter and placed it upon the dining table. Her mother burst into tears when she read it, but through the weeping a smile bloomed upon her face.

“There’s a truce with Palamecia,” she told Rosa. “Your father is coming home.”

***

To welcome the troops back to Baron, the King and his ministers arranged a great homecoming parade. The various companies—the Dragoons, the Dark Knights, the marines serving under both, even the sailors in the ragtag Navy—would march through the city’s main thoroughfares, over the great bridge, and up to the main gates of the castle. There His Majesty himself welcomed them, bestowing honors, lands, and riches upon all those who had distinguished themselves.

Along with the other noble families the Farrells and the Highwinds watched the parade from special risers covered by a wide pavilion set catty-corner to the dais where the King and his privy council sat in state.

“Look! There’s your lord father,” Rosa called to Kain. She could spy him from even so far away as he marched at the head of the Dragoon battalions. His indigo armor coiled around him, the eyes of his helmet studded with rubies, and anyone looking would have sworn he wore the very skin of a dragon over his head and shoulders. Lady Highwind and Kain whooped and clapped their hands once he drew into his ending position. Lord Highwind turned his head toward them and nodded, which made Kain yell even louder.

A few groups later Rosa saw her father marching as a Captain of the marines. She and her mother waved their hands and shouted. When he caught sigh of them, he blew a kiss.

Once all of the troops had finished the parade, cannons boomed from the castle towers. Rosa hated the loud noises but gritted her teeth and forced herself not to cry. Her father was out there, and once the celebration ended, he would be coming back home with them and—

“The men of Baron,” the King began, his voice carrying easily over the hushed crowds, “never fight without just cause. Thanks to your valor and sacrifices, brave men of Baron, you have safeguarded our borders against the encroachments of Palamecia and have brought them to sue for peace…”

Rosa paid no more attention to anything except watching her father and making faces at Kain from behind their mothers’ heads. He joyfully made faces back. She knew that he was doing the same as she: imagining what the coming months would hold, what new adventures lay in wait. Rosa passed the time imagining what games she and her parents would play, what gifts her father had brought them from the borderlands. She would love a new toy bow—but not a crossbow! those were no fun—and maybe he had brought some silks, a jewel from somewhere far away. Only her father advancing to the dais and kneeling before the King, who clapped him on the shoulder and smiled, broke her from her dreams.

Another bone-rattling round of cannon-fire signaled the end of the ceremonies. Rosa and her mother pressed through the crowds to meet her father. He welcomed them both with kisses and picked her up high, her legs kicking the air. “My sweet ladies! I’ve missed you so!”

Her mother, once so joyful, had the old ruefulness back in her smile. “Welcome home, my good husband. I am glad to see you well. I must admit, it was hard waiting for you this campaign.”

“Yes, I was able to receive all your letters.” He brought Rosa down so their faces were level. “You had a terrible fright, didn’t you? I’m sorry about your poor friend. But you don’t need to be afraid any longer, because I’m home now you and your lady mother can be at ease.”

“And for how long?” her mother pressed. “Six months? Eight?”

Her father grinned in triumph. “Oh, no need to grumble this time, sweetheart. You know my men and I did very well for ourselves; we almost had the Emperor’s britches for the taking, we routed him so badly. I myself snatched away one of his standards. Lord Highwind,” he nodded over at the man in question, who was stroking Kain’s head and murmuring to Lady Highwind, “commended me highly. When His Majesty asked me to name my reward—”

Her mother drew him close, looking torn between whether she wanted to kiss him or pinch him. “Yes? Out with it, my good man.”

As he laughed he drew out two strings of pearls from his soldier's kit, one large enough to loop around her mother's neck while the other did not slip past Rosa's forehead. “I have requested the post of Vice-Captain of the Guard. No more foreign battles if I can help it. Baron’s the place for me.”

***

With her father home, time melted by happily and without incident. Rosa had her birthday, then Kain had his, and a new routine established itself. Rosa only regretted that Kain now had to go off to the castle five days a week to start his new course of studies with the other boys destined to become lords and warriors—no more having him all to herself. On his first morning she had tamped down all her panic and gone out to walk with him and the Highwinds through the streets, flinching at every clatter and crushing Kain’s hand until they reached the great bridge. Lady Highwind saw her back home, wiping away any stray tears along away so that she returned to her parents with bright eyes.

Rosa spent part of her own days at lessons with her parents or with the other children in the little creche the court ladies had established for their young ones, but when the city bells chimed the fourth afternoon hour she would wend her way towards the Highwind residence or wait at her front door for Kain. He didn’t like to tell her about what he was learning, saying it was for only for gentlemen to know, but he always had a story about how he won a fistfight against another boy or some gossip about so-and-so’s family or news about something wonderful Cid had made in his workshop. They still played the usual games and showed off their new toys to one another.

Then, almost a year to the day he began lessons at the castle, Kain fell into an uncharacteristic melancholy. He arrived at their playtimes scowling and did not talk as much about his daily adventures. What they were learning was boring and things weren’t as fun anymore. She wheedled and badgered him, sensing there was a more direct cause for his disgruntlement, until he finally capitulated.

“There’s this new boy who’s been coming to our lessons.” He snapped the stick he had been toying with into perfect halves. “He’s a real snot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: ♪Here comes a special boy!♪


	3. Little Moons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosa meets Cecil. She thinks he's neat. Kain's nascent psychological issues send their regards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay between chapters. This one had a rather hard time coming together and the writer's block was awful. At least it's almost as long as the first two chapters combined, so hopefully that makes up for something.
> 
> A minor source of confusion for me when brushing up on my FFIV lore is that old supplemental materials say that Rosa's father was a Dragoon, but her mother never actually calls him that in the game itself. She only calls him a 'knight.' Whenever supplemental materials seem to muddle or contradict the in-game text, I tend to either prefer the game or split the difference. In this case, I've made Hal Farrell an EX-Dragoon who used to serve under Richard Highwind before an injury left him unable to jump as true Dragoons should. Even after that, I envision the Dragoons as working very closely with the other military units and Hal still worked very closely with Richard during campaigns.
> 
> Some FFIV sources claim that Richard was very strict with Kain as a child, but I have been unable to confirm this myself. I think it may come from something Kain mentions in TAY, but I've never played that game and just skimming the script didn't reveal anything. My personal take is that Richard was a loving but rather strict father and not very demonstrative with his affection. I would not consider him to be deliberately abusive, but he'd probably come off across as harsh by modern standards. By Baronian standards, Hal Farrell would be considered uxorious and overly indulgent with his family--not that he'd care.
> 
> Cecil! What a mess your childhood history is, especially when you take the DS version into account! In all the other versions Cecil's parentage doesn't really come up until the last minute, but the DS version has CECILIA and she's a whole different can of worms. The King of Baron KNEW Cecilia and it's highly implied that he knows, or at least greatly suspects, that Cecil is her son. I don't think the king knows that KluYa is the father. It doesn't do much to change Cecil's background as an orphan and ward of the king, but I like to think that the king at least told Cecil a little about her during his childhood.
> 
> Finally: I envision Cecil, being half MOON MAN, as being rather sickly and thin as a child, which didn't allow him for much early contact with other children, so he had trouble socializing before Rosa and Kain come into the picture. Even as an adult Cecil is rather stoic and soft-spoken, so I imagine him being an awkward child. But we all know he's sweeter than honey once you get to know him! I love these characters so much.

Chapter Three: Little Moons

In olden times, long before the first human inhabitants, Baronian history held that the southern part of the Middle Continent had once been ruled by Giants. How these Giants had met their end furnished many a scholarly debate; but whether they were driven back by the brutal cunning of primeval humans, the scorching depredations of the great dragons that once nested all throughout the northern mountains, or disease, they did not depart without leaving one great monument to their existence. When settlers began forming Baron Town proper, they found a great artificial island built amidst the craggy shoals that lined the eastern inlet. Since only small boats could navigate the shoals and the sea itself formed a natural moat, this island proved nearly impregnable and served as the site of the town’s first fortress. The old kings kept on expanding upon the old fortress and turned it into both castle and palace, towers accreting upon one another in dizzying feats of architectural daring, easily marking itself as the tallest man-made structure in the entire world. No other nation could boast Castle Baron’s like. Only the Tower of Bab-il was taller, and all scholars, despite disputing everything else about its history, agreed that the Tower had been made by no human hands.

The Great Bridge offered the only direct way from the mainland onto the island. Passing through the first set of gates led to the Old Bailey, practically a second town all to itself: here were shops, storehouses and granaries, extra housing for the families of soldiers barracked in the castle proper, and a vast parade field for daily military drills. Beyond the Old Bailey stood Castle Baron proper, its spires flying to the sky and—so it was whispered—a great labyrinth of underground storerooms honeycombing through the heart of the island below. You could spend years wandering through every single room, every passage and not learn all those thousands of years’ secrets. Superstition held that any overly-ambitious architects who had fully mapped the entire castle grounds were walled up alive to keep their silence; every month someone reported a ghost sighting; and a favorite game among the court children was to see who could brave a full night in a specific wing in the East Tower where many court ladies and Queens of old were said to have died in childbirth. Such a long-lived and vibrant center of sin and death, virtue and life, naturally became a place of mystery.

The castle loomed so large on its island that it could be viewed from any unobstructed point in the town, a lodestone for the people’s eyes and thoughts: everyone knew that they worked for the benefit of that seat of power, and in turn that power would benefit them. Rosa was no exception. She longed for the day—coming in almost two seasons now—when she reached the age of reason and would be allowed to enter the great gates for her further education. Her parents promised her a dance instructor, a library filled with books, riding lessons, masques, and fine gardens. Her mother allowed that her own time at court had been _instructive_ , if not particularly pleasurable, and that any lady who wanted true knowledge of the world had to serve at least two seasons there. “But after that” her mother said, “if you find it no longer to your liking, there’s plenty of things for a lady to attend to.”

This dream future lay tantalizingly close. Once he had settled into his new position as Vice Captain, three out of every seven days her father took her to the royal butts, which were situated on a supplemental training compound located on the mainland side, only five minutes’ walk from the Great Bridge. Every soldier in Baron was required to learn how to shoot a bow passably well; only Dragoons were exempt, as they were instead expected to master throwing their lances. Her own father had taken up the sport late, not until after suffering the leg injury that prevented him from riding the wind properly and ended his career as a Dragoon, but he had taken to it quickly. A few lanes in the butts were enclosed, but most were open to the breezes that came off the sea—all the better to train archers how to gauge the winds and fire true in all conditions. Until airships were perfected, a contingent of Baronian archers brought almost as much terror to their enemies as any squadron of Dark Knights or Dragoons.

Rosa liked the pearls and other trinkets her father had brought home from his last campaign well enough, but she had gone almost mad with joy when he had presented her with a child-sized recurve bow—a true bow, no mere toy. At first, she could barely string it herself and her arms grew weary after only a few shots, but her father taught her exercises and stretches that would make her back, hands and arms strong and her stance solid. Like most children she wanted to be just as skillful as the adults she observed and quickly grew frustrated by her lack of immediate mastery, to which her father always said: “You’ll never be able to pierce armor that’s of any merit, so do not worry too much about your draw weight. Use those eyes of yours to sound out the softest parts of your target. Learn to keep your hands steady at all times. Never directly engage unless your shot is sure. Keep this in mind, my girl, and you’ll win the day against any man or beast.” Until that mastery came, she spent more time being jostled around into proper form than actually firing at targets. Even so, she loved every minute of it. Without fail she braved the clattering and crushing streets on their chocobo, grasping her father tightly by the waist and burying her head against his back with her eyes screwed shut, so great was the pleasure at the end of those harrowing trips. The terror slightly diminished with every trip.

If there were any askance glances cast at her presence, Rosa did not notice. Hal Farrell may not have been the handsomest or hardiest of men, but he had a knack for people and his services as an aide-de-camp to Lord Highwind through years of campaigns had made him into a popular figure with the soldiery. And the pair of them did make quite a charming picture, a perhaps overly-fond father and his pretty little daughter, her hair up in twin dumpling-coils and her sleeves pinned back, enjoying a sport together. Her father introduced her to absolutely everyone they met on the training grounds, commending her to their consideration Rosa curtsied as prettily as she could at least a hundred times, proving that all her etiquette lessons had taken good root.

The pleasure of these outings was compounded by the happy discovery that around the same time in the morning the boys who had the privilege of taking their education on the castle grounds came jogging across the bridge to the compound for riding lessons at the stables. Kain was of course among them; if timed right, Rosa could catch him and talk with him about the day’s plans or sneak a treat from her mother--he had been complaining that his parents had begun to discourage him from eating sweets.

Kain had only once discussed with Rosa the boy who so irked him (so irksome that he didn’t even deign to give a name), but she kept close watch on how he acted with the other boys when he rejoined them at the stables. She managed to coax her father into letting her watch the drill a few times so she could get more familiar with the group, which came to not purpose. Kain appeared to get on well with them—he treated the older boys with due respect, those his age and younger with easy familiarity. How could he have any enemies among them? But apparently he did, and Rosa was ready to make any enemy of Kain’s her own. Undoubtedly Kain would protest at first, say it was his trouble to deal with, but she imagined them combining forces to make this snot’s life utterly miserable until he changed his ways and begged Kain’s pardon.

Then came the Chocobo Incident.

Among the training stables was a particularly amiable and intelligent bird that handled easily and never bucked or kicked. Kain always selected it for his mount during riding exercises and told Rosa that he had begged his father to purchase it as his next birthday gift. But the chocobo was suddenly removed from its place and transferred to the stables within the castle walls, reserved for one Young Master Harvey. This broke the last tether of Kain’s restraint. When the stable master told him the news, he went flying off to exact vengeance. Rosa had been waiting for him as usual, but he brushed past her without a glance.

Rosa decided to follow at a distance, her resolve fueled by curiosity and indignation. She was detained along the way by a castle soldier who thought her particularly adorable and who always insisted on cooing over her and asking about her archery progress; once she finally extricated herself, it took her several minutes’ searching to find where Kain had gone.

She heard his voice first, coming from behind a storehouse on the compound, and then another much softer response. Hastening to catch up, Rosa rounded the storehouse corner to find Kain cornering a smaller boy against the wall. He grasped the boy by the shirtfront, fist raised to strike. “Talk back to me, will you, pixie-boy? I’ll teach you!”

All of her former resolutions melted away. Playfighting was one thing; here was a scene of ugliness, Kain’s face twisted with rage as he towered over the other boy hanging from his grip.

“Stop it!” Her She was glad for her heavy clogs that clipped noisily against the ground and added authority to her approach. Kain dropped the other boy in his surprise, the rage leaching from his face.

“Rosa!” Her name came tonelessly from his lips and she couldn’t tell if Kain was annoyed or pleading with her. Perhaps Kain himself did not know. A deep frown furrowed her brow (and she had a horrible frown—everyone who saw it was amazed at how ugly it made her look) as she advanced, hands fisted on her hips in imitation of her mother’s displeasure.

“‘Men of Baron do not fight without just cause,’” she chided, “that’s what His Majesty always says. What’s he ever done to you? He’s not even fighting back!”

“But Rosa, it’s _him!_ The one I told you about. And he’s the one who—my chocobo—he took it!”

The boy, who had been content to back up out of striking range and listen in bewilderment, stepped forward a pace. “It’s my fault. Are you talking about my new chocobo? It was given to me as a surprise, but I’ll have it taken back.”

This struck her as extraordinary. Whenever one of her other playmates was caught doing wrong, they would usually squirm and cry and either say it wasn’t their doing, that someone or something else was to blame (dogs, moths, and sabotage were the leading causes of ruined stitchwork among the girls Rosa took lessons with). Even Rosa herself had fallen to that temptation once, when she had blamed a cracked cup on Kain’s roughhousing; she’d gotten her knuckles rapped, an ear tweaked, and her toy bow confiscated by her undeceived mother for three days for that failed ploy. To have this boy offer himself up so readily was refreshing.

“You’re very honest,” she smiled, wanting to go nearer to the boy, but Kain did not find his admission as soothing as she did.

“See? It wasn’t my fault!”

“I suppose it wasn’t,” she giggled, but some devil still had its hand in Kain’s heart as he whirled back on the boy, the fury resurfacing.

“And you can keep that stupid chocobo! I don’t want your scraps, you pixie! You deserve each other; your face is already the color of bird shit anyway!”

Kain’s flare-ups rarely lasted this long; normally they burned bright hot for a brief time, then cooled off rapidly as he became genial again. But when he did get like this, Rosa knew from past experience that the only thing to do was avoid him until the mood passed. Coddling, distracting, or any other approaches were of no use. Only Lord or Lady Highwind could contain these fits through sheer intimidation and Rosa, as irritated as she was becoming with him now, did not want word of this fight reaching their ears. Their disappointment would sting Kain almost as badly as a stripe against the backside, which he had gotten on very rare occasions. She had to take this in hand before it reached that point.

“Oh, settle down, Kain, settle down,” she cried, maneuvering herself between the boys. “Go take a nap or something. Tell your teachers you’re not feeling good. You’re no fun when you’re like this!”

“But I—” He lurched back a pace, and Rosa had to wonder at herself. Until now she had always taken Kain’s side in any argument with anyone else, whether it meant agreeing that a warrior-monk could _so_ defeat a ninja in man-to-man combat, that the second moon was made of cheese, or that his tyrannical parents never gave him enough pocket money. One more look at the other boy, his shoulders hunched in on themselves despite his best efforts, renewed her resolve.

“Dragoons don’t make excuses. Shoo! Shoo!” Rosa was glad that her frock had bell sleeves, for they could billow most menacingly when she flapped her arms. Kain faltered backwards on more step, then turned on his heel and fled. She thought he would have put up more of a fight—but she would deal with him later, when he wasn’t being so difficult. The first order of busines was to attend to the would-be victim, who now was eyeing her warily.

The boy was like no other she had ever seen, and in truth she couldn’t call him handsome: close-cropped daisy-white hair, skin only slightly darker, and lips tinged purple like those of a drowned person. He seemed frail, almost sickly, with a gracile bone structure, his wrists barely thicker than hers and his head only a wisp higher. She would have to ask her mother if there was a disease with such outward symptoms—but his eyes had no unhealthy sheen to them, nor did he display any lethargy or pain. Perhaps he was not sick, then, just oddly put together. Or perhaps he was an elf or fairy in disguise? He had eyes much lighter than Kain’s, a silvery pale blue. He was very odd indeed, but in the way a bandy-legged, bug-eyed scrawny kitten is odd. The more she looked at him, the more her delight increased; she felt that she had come face-to-face with one of the castle’s many mysteries. She circled around him as she brushed off bits of gravel from his simple tunic, which from its feel and look proved to be made of fine linen. The boy looked more bewildered by her ministrations than he had when Kain’s fist was almost in his teeth.

“You’re not hurt anywhere, are you? Doesn’t look like it. Don’t mind Kain, I don’t know why he was like that because he’s usually so fun and nice. Maybe he’s in a bad mood. But even so! That’s no excuse.” Rosa clucked her tongue as the stirrings of a great speech formulated in her brain, a speech that would shame Kain into tears. The boy said nothing during the barrage of her words; his thin ribcage fluttered underneath his tunic; his eyes darted as they sought some escape route. Finally sensing that this came as a result of her over-eagerness, Rosa forced herself to stand further away and face him directly. She dampened her grin into something demurer.

“Are you scared? I won’t hurt you. I’m Sir Farrell’s daughter. Do you know him?”

“He’s the Vice-Captain,” the boy acknowledged. “I see him around the castle. He’s a very genteel man. He always greets me kindly.”

She nodded encouragement. “And who are you?”

Once the subject had rebounded onto him the boy’s ribcage gave another flutter. “Cecil.”

“I’m Rosa; pleased to meet you. And who’s your father?” Once more she spooked him—his lips mouthed abortive words, his feet shuffled. She could not fathom why he acted so nervously around her, not after he had handled Kain’s threats so coolly. Other children only acted like this when they had some great secret. Snatches of stories learned from her reading primer and the fairy tales recited to her offered a dizzying array of possibilities.

“I’m a ward of the King. He has taken good care of me.”

“Ward, what’s that? Does that mean you’re a prince?”

“No.”

“Who’s your mother?” She seemed to be murdering him by inches with all of her questions, but he just kept on answering them with a straightened back and set chin like she was his schoolmaster.

“His Majesty says she was a lady named Cecilia.” He offered nothing else, but Rosa now knew enough to grasp the full meaning of _was._ Elissa had become a _was._

“I’m very sorry.” Rosa knew a few orphans among her circle of playmates, but they at least had other living kin to look after their needs. His thin face and melancholy eyes marked him more like one of the children from the town orphanage (an old establishment and one of His Majesty’s great passion projects) her mother sometimes treated, but his clothes were too fine for him to have come from there. Perhaps that was the ‘special treatment’ that so irked Kain—but why would Kain begrudge him even this poor amount of comfort?

“You’re very pale. Are you feeling all right?”

“I’m well, thank you.”

So this is what Kain meant, she realized, somewhat frustrated; but how could this be snobbery when the boy was making such an effort to even reply? Did they not see how his ribs fluttered? She had seen the looks of children and adults when they gazed upon their inferiors and his eyes held no such cold flatness. When he spoke, he gained a small hunch in his posture as if he were in pain. Unsure of how to proceed, Rosa backed off a few more paces and settled onto the tufty ground. “If you like, I can bring you some extra food whenever I come here for archery lessons. My lady mother has an apprentice who makes the best tarts.”

“His Majesty makes sure I eat very well,” Cecil said, much more firmly, the barest heat tinging his words in defense of their liege lord; just as quickly the heat cooled as he added, “I’m just small.”

“Maybe eating more tarts will help you get bigger and stronger,” she suggested, half-jesting. In return his fine brows drew in and his lips pursed. He was actually giving it his entire consideration! Before she even knew what earnestness was, Rosa could sense that Cecil was painfully full of it; yet it was tempered by an uncommon self-mastery that made him appear older than his years. Oddly put together in both appearance and demeanor—he was fantastic. Something light burned in her chest and a wave of _relief_ flooded her, loosening the knots of pain that had formed after Elissa died. It was like being rocked to sleep, or a cool bath in the parching summer.

It all struck her so suddenly. Rosa began to giggle and laugh to herself. If Cecil hadn’t been rescued by the booming voice that called to him, he probably would have tried another run for it.

“Cecil, lad, there you are! I asked every stable-mucker I met where you were and they never saw a peep of you. If you’re gonna skip riding lessons, at least come to the shop so’s I—” the gleam from those goggles fell upon her. Out came the boxy teeth. “ _Oh-ho!_ If it ain’t little Lady Farrell! Your Pop’s looking for you, too. Hey, Hal, here she is!”

He was advancing upon her. Rosa shot to her feet, flubbing her automatic curtsey and trying not to tremble. She never could explain it because Cid adored all children and he had always treated her with nothing but kindness, but somehow Rosa’s tender little mind had twisted reality and convinced her that Cid wore those goggles because he had no eyes underneath. Whether they were just gaping pits or patches of skin she could not say. She’d also had a nightmare or two where he brought her too close to those teeth and bit off her nose. Just before he got within arm’s reach Rosa dodged around Cid’s stubby legs and leapt into her father’s arms. Safe!

“Why doesn’t she _like_ me, Hal?” Peeping over her shoulder, Rosa watched Cid scoop up Cecil in a loose hug. To her utter surprise, Cecil’s face broke into an unmistakable smile and he reached to tug at the bristly beard. Her father gently turned her in his arms so she could no longer look away, making it very clear to her with a look that he was silently laughing at her. He thought her Cid dreams a great joke but was too diplomatic to share them with the man in question. And now to see him handling the boy so happily—how could she come off as scarier to him than _Cid?_

“Now, Rosa, don’t treat Master Cid like that. Come wish him and the young master good day.”

“Good day,” she managed in an unwavering voice, watching Cecil bounce his legs from his new perch on Cid’s shoulders and feeling rather stupid. She’d never needed to worry about her nose after all.

***

That afternoon had already been designated for her usual playtime with Kain, which gave Rosa space to summon all the cunning she could muster, her purpose fixed as never before. She asked her mother to hand her off a little earlier than usual, before Kain came home from his lessons, saying she had a little surprise for him. And that surprise was the scolding of a lifetime! She would cleverly conceal herself, catch him unawares, and she would make him realize his earlier folly.

Everything went as planned. She even had time to enjoy a snack from Lady Highwind before she positioned herself behind one of the townhouse’s front support posts and hauled a couple of small empty water barrels for extra cover.

Here Kain came, walking up from the far side of the street; he would have to pass by her hiding spot to reach the door. She was still unsure of her chances at first, but his gait was slow and his eyes unfocused. As he passed by, Rosa padded up behind his blind side and sent him sprawling onto his back. He fell to the ground, rolling with the impact, and before he could right himself she settled on top of his chest and jabbed a finger in front of his nose.

“You shouldn’t be so mean, treating that boy like that—and he’s smaller than you! What would your lord father and lady mother say, you bully? Shame on you!”

“Shut up! What do you know about it? You don’t see how he acts around the rest of us. He’s a snot. I’ve asked him before to sit with me and my fellows, and he never says a word. He just looks up and blinks at us like, ‘ _Ooooh, His Majesty pets my head and gives me sweeties, I’m so much better than yooouu!’_ In between lessons he just sits in the dirt or stays at his desk. He doesn’t join anyone. But then the master will call on him to read and he’ll be all, ‘ _Yes, Sir! I’ll be your canary! Tweet, tweet!’”_

He twisted his voice so funnily that Rosa couldn’t help laughing. She felt her indignation draining away, but just the thought of that poor pale face quickly set her back on course, even if she had lost the edge of fury that had first propelled her. She had intended to berate him a little further, but it was easiest state the solution to the problem outright. She honestly thought it so obvious, it was odd Kain hadn’t realized it. “He’s not a snot. He’s just shy, don’t you see?”

“What?”

“He’s _shy!”_

“The worse for him, then. He won’t get very far if all he can do is gawk and answer your questions like some kind of parrot.”

“I thought he was a canary.”

“You baby! It doesn’t matter. He’s a freak, that’s what he is.” He barked out a laugh. “He probably has a rat’s tail or fairy wings under his clothes.”

If he thought that would somehow douse her interest, he was sorely mistaken. She waved her hands in the air, transported by the mystery of it all. “That would be _amazing!”_

Only then did Rosa realize that this was the perfect opening for Kain to throw her off, but he had ceased all struggle. His arms stretched out, palms up in defeat, as he stared past her up at the empty air above. His mouth crumpled into a miserable line; tears coursed down past his eyes to his temples.

“You don’t—you don’t _like_ him? That sop-face?” He ended on a sob. Rosa waved her arms again, this time in panic.

“No!”

“Don’t lie to me, don’t ever lie to me!” he screamed, his fingers clenching as if he would reach up and tear sky down around their ears. “You’ve only seen him once and you like him better than me!”

Her heart thundered and she almost screamed back at him, but she remembered a trick her parents had recently taught her after she and another girl had pulled each other’s hair in a fight over a toy. She took the deepest breath she could. “No.” This time the word did not come out as a screech, but from the very depths of her throat. She forced herself to speak as slowly as possible. “I’m not lying. I would like to make friends with him. But, Kain, there’s no one in the world I like better than you.”

He gulped for air, wiped his face. “With your whole heart?”

“I need parts of my heart for Mama and Papa and my other friends. But I’ll like nobody _better._ Even after we’re old and wrinkled and all our teeth have fallen out, you’ll be right here.” She thumped her hand solidly against her chest. Kain seemed to accept the compromise and sent a watery smile up at her, but his mouth soon fell into a hard line.

A small moan: “My legs hurt.” Rosa drew back at once to scan him over. She could not recall him limping or showing any other sign of discomfort when he had walked past. She hadn’t tackled him that hard.

“Where?”

“Everywhere. The boys who are training to become Dragoons—we’re practicing our jumping forms every day now. Then Father has me practice with him in the evenings.” When he had started his training, Kain had given her a taste of the basic exercises all prospective Dragoon squires performed to strengthen their legs and jump as far as humanly possible; it had been torturous, and she had given up after only two minutes. And here he was, going through those tendon-shredding leaps every day while she had barreled him over!

Rosa threw her arms around him, drawing him close and pressing his cheek against her shoulder so she could stroke his hair. He always seemed embarrassed about it, but Kain did like it when she or his mother played with his hair, growing ever longer. He said it was very soothing. “I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have knocked you down if I’d known. I didn’t mean to hurt you even more!” Sickly waves of guilt soured her stomach. “Maybe you shouldn’t have to practice so much. It’s not good if you’re hurting.”

Her solicitude seemed to brace him somewhat. He shook his head. “I must. I won’t disappoint Father.”

“But—”

“I won’t!”

Knowing she had pushed him far enough she could only finish with: “I’ll ask Mama to make some ointment for you. And please tell your lady mother that your legs hurt. She can help. You must have them rubbed and stretched every day!”

He gingerly rolled away from her and ignored the hand she offered as they both stood. “One mother’s plenty. I don’t need two.”

“You need all the help you can get!” she laughed, the old easiness settling between them. She reached for his hand again to entwine their fingers; this time he allowed it.

“I really want to make friends with him,” she ventured as they walked through the door. Kain snorted, looking as if he’d spit on the ground and countered with, “Do as you please. I can’t stop you.”

“Could you please—please not bully him anymore? And try not to let the other boys get at him? They’d listen to you.”

“Fine! I’ll do what I can, but I won’t mother him. If he just wants to sit by himself, he’s welcome to it. He’s had his shot.”

She supposed she could ask no more than that, but a perverse part of her kept on trying to be sly. “But did you _really_ give him a chance? I think he could be quite a nice friend for you too, if you’d just only—”

“Shan’t!”

***

That evening Rosa chattered about nothing else except her meeting the strange pale boy and all of her theories about his background. Perhaps he truly was a prince from another land, but only His Majesty knew the truth and would only reveal everything when Cecil grew old enough to perform some feat to show his worthiness. Perhaps he only pretended to be sickly by day and then by night went on great adventures. Perhaps the woman he thought was his mother, the Lady Cecilia, really was from the land of faeries and had gone back to her people, waiting for her son to go on a quest seek her out. Her parents’ indulgence had borne the stream of fancy—her father even laughed—until this last hypothesis.

“Rosa, that kind of talk is all good and fun for your fairy tales, but you mustn’t say such things about real people. It’s very rude, and unkind.” Her mother cast a quelling glance from the tail of her eye as she nursed a mug of tea; Rosa hadn’t felt the sting of that look since her father had returned. Awaiting correction, Rosa folded her fingers and stared at the floor. “I hope you haven’t already spouted such nonsense to that boy. His mother is dead and there is no coming back for her.”

“How do you know?”

Most parents might have fobbed off the question, but Joanna Farrell never believed in sugarcoating. “Because I knew her very slightly, when I used to be at court. We weren’t friends. But I know she would have never abandoned any child of hers if she were alive.”

“I remember her a little as well,” said her father. “Beautiful lady. She danced gorgeously.”

“What happened?” Rosa asked, trying not to show unseemly hunger for more.

“She died. That is all. If you want to become a healer, my girl, you must learn how to keep secrets. It’s not for you to know.”

Her father cupped her tiny hand under his. “Not only is it none of our business, but we must show proper respect. I’m sure His Majesty will tell him anything he doesn’t know about her in good time.” There came a mirthless “ha!” which started everyone, including the culprit herself. Rosa and her father turned their eyes upon her mother, who was blushing. Her mother never blushed.

“Now, sweetheart—”

“Never mind. We will talk no more of this.”

“Was she very beautiful?”

“Gods ‘a mercy! What did I just say, Rosa? Put your nose where it doesn’t belong, and it’ll be snipped off. It is very unbecoming of you. I won’t have you grow into a gossip.”

“Gently, sweetheart, gently.” Her father turned back to her. “What are you aiming at, my girl? It’s not like you to be so curious.”

“I just want. . .I’d like to be able to tell him something kind about her. It might cheer him up. He seems lonely and the other boys are mean to him.”

Another one of those piercing glances sized her up, and her mother softened just slightly. “Yes, she was beautiful, although I don’t see how he’d take much comfort in that. Let me see. I remember her being truly kind, that’s a little better. A very gentle woman. She would give the children of the town sweetmeats.”

A small smile had made its way onto her father’s face. “We crowned her the Maid of Spring once. I remember she also introduced a fashion at court. She took small pearls and threaded them into her hair. They’d catch the light and shine like little moons. The women and men both went mad for it. I couldn’t ever get the knack of it.” He went over to sit beside her mother. “How did you ever pull it off? I remember you had them as well. They were devilish hard to tie!”

“Unlike you, my good husband, I have both patience and quick fingers. You have either one or the other, not both. But there you have it, Rosa: some good words. But really, don’t make too much of a fuss about beauty to the boy. I’ve seen too many women praised only for their beauty, and they’ve almost always come to a bad end. If a man comes to you and only praises your beauty, you must beware!”

“Yes, Mama.”

“Come, come, so harsh! True beauty comes from love. Is my wife not the most beautiful creature in all the land? Is my daughter not the loveliest?” her father cried, drawing her mother onto his lap. 

“Bias blinds you. You know very well I am fading woman. We’ll see what song you sing, my good man, once I’ve lost it all.”

“Never! It will be a treat to see you old and gray. I’ll sing the song I’ve always sung.” He gave her mother a swift kiss on the lips that made Rosa giggle and avert her eyes. He launched into a ballad that had been popular some years ago. “ _If you’ll marry me, I’ll always be most true to you! / If you’ll marry me, I’ve kisses not a few for you…”_

“Stop, you fool!” her mother laughed.

“‘ _If you’ll marry me, I’ll take you in and do for you! / All this will I do if you marry me/ all this will I do if you marry me!”_ At the end of every stanza her father kissed a different place on her mother’s face and neck. “ _Eeeeey, but I do! Like! You!”_

“You fool!”

While they talked and sang snippets of song back at each other, Rosa slipped away to her mother’s desk, a wooden behemoth with shelves filled with perfectly ordered notes on patients and medical texts. She made a little pretense of practicing in her copybook for a bit; after making certain her parents’ eyes were nowhere near, she reached out for the junk box filled with odds and ends that her mother did not want to throw away. She dug around for a small seed pearl that had once been stringed on a now-broken necklace. Next, she reached for ink, a sheet of vellum, and a good quill. Even for her age she wrote in an indifferent hand (how beautifully her mother could write!), but she labored over every letter to make them as even and straight as possible.

**To Sehsil,**

**I hope this letter finds you well. I am well too. I am very sorry Kain bullied you. I promise he will not do it again. Please do not be afraid of him. If you want Kain to like you talk about dragons. Say that storm drakes are your favorite. Blue dragons are his real favorite but if you say blue dragons he will think you are copying him. He doesn’t like that.**

**I am also sorry I asked you so many questions today. My lady mother says I must not do that. I only did it because I think you are neat. I would like to try to be friends. It is fine if you say no.**

**Did you know that your lady mother was a gorjeous dancer? My parents say so. If you ask His Majesty, he will say the same thing. She was also very kind and gave out sweetmeats. She liked to wear pearls in her hair. It was the style. Here is a pearl for your own hair but you will need to grow it longer.**

**I would like it very much if we see each other again.**

**Rosa Farrell**

“I believe his name is spelled another way, sweetheart,” her father said gently when she showed the letter to him.

“Oh!”

“Never you fret. All it needs is a bit of scraping. Just give me a little. Once I’m done, we’ll seal it up and I’ll make sure our young master receives it. If anything, I can drop it off with Cid. In fact, I wager I can arrange for you two to have some playtime together if you’re so keen on him.” Rosa jigged in place with much squealing and clapping of hands while he took the vellum back over to the desk and scraped at the errors with the little correction knife she was not yet allowed to touch. Then she suddenly remembered.

“But only if Kain’s there, too.” She went over and buried her face into her mother’s side. “Mama, Kain’s legs are hurting. Can’t we give him something to make him feel better?”

“Ah, why didn’t you say so earlier? I could have sent it over this afternoon. You flitter-headed thing,” her mother sighed, rising and going into the examination room. Inside there were shelves stocked with ointments, lozenges, and powders for almost any ailment. When her mother had emerged, she placed a bottle filled with a thick liniment that smelled of wintergreen and camphor into a small basket. “There. I’ll give it to Aoife tomorrow. Hal, speak to Richard, won’t you? Kain’s too young to be pushed so hard.”

“Well, I’d say it’s because Richard wants to give him a good start. The Emperor—”

“A fig for the Emperor! Either you talk sense into that man or else I’ll go myself.”

“I’m not sure he’d appreciate your usual tack, let alone Aoife and Kain. Best leave it to me, love. I know Richard better than you.”

“I daresay I know his wife and son better than he does,” her mother snapped. “Do what you can. And you, Rosa, please keep looking after him.” She reached out, drawing Rosa back into a loose embrace at her side. Rosa snuggled in.

“I will! Kain tells me everything.”

***

With some diplomacy on her father’s part and much cajoling, pleading, and outright bribery (Kain’s favorite cake) on Rosa’s, the three of them had their first round of afternoon playtime within a week. They all brought their preferred toys: Kain had his dragon; Cecil a model ship that Cid had also made; and Rosa, banned from bringing her bow, had Princess Maude. Things started out slowly, the boys wary of each other, until Cecil mentioned storm drakes. Kain held forth on the superiority of blue dragons, which naturally led into them playing the dragon game. Rosa offered up Maude as the sacrifice once more, but Cecil, finally getting into it, went off script and actually snatched the doll away from Kain, proclaiming himself a dragon-slaying knight. Kain, so much bigger than Cecil even with just the year’s difference between them, soundly wrestled him into submission. Then he wrestled Rosa into submission when she challenged him. By the end of their time together that day both Rosa and Cecil were deliciously out of breath, hardly able to rise from the ground as Kain crowed over them.

Rosa hadn’t noticed it before because it blended in with his pale skin, but Cecil had a small tail of longer hair at the very base of his neck. Whenever he moved his head, she caught the faint shimmer of the little seed pearl tied there.

_Next chapter: The good times come and go as Baron goes to war once more. Rosa can only offer prayers._


End file.
